Association identification re-assignment

ABSTRACT

This disclosure describes systems, methods, and devices related to association identification (AID) re-assignment. A device may perform an association with a station multi-link device (STA MLD), wherein the STA MLD comprises one or more logical entities defining separate station devices. The device may assign a first AID to the STA MLD. The device may establish one or more links with the STA MLD. The device may cause to send an indication of an assignment of a second AID to the STA MLD. The device may communicate with the STA MLD using the second AID.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure generally relates to systems and methods for wireless communications and, more particularly, to association identification (AID) re-assignment.

BACKGROUND

Wireless devices are becoming widely prevalent and are increasingly requesting access to wireless channels. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is developing one or more standards that utilize Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) in channel allocation.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A is a network diagram illustrating an example network environment for AID re-assignment, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 1B depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for a multi-link device (MLD) between two logical entities, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 1C depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for a multi-link device (MLD) between AP with logical entities and a non-AP with logical entities, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for AID re-assignment, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for AID re-assignment, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for AID re-assignment, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for AID re-assignment, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flow diagram of illustrative process for an illustrative AID re-assignment system, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 illustrates a functional diagram of an exemplary communication station that may be suitable for use as a user device, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of an example machine upon which any of one or more techniques (e.g., methods) may be performed, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a radio architecture in accordance with some examples.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example front-end module circuitry for use in the radio architecture of FIG. 9, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 illustrates an example radio IC circuitry for use in the radio architecture of FIG. 9, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 12 illustrates an example baseband processing circuitry for use in the radio architecture of FIG. 9, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description and the drawings sufficiently illustrate specific embodiments to enable those skilled in the art to practice them. Other embodiments may incorporate structural, logical, electrical, process, algorithm, and other changes. Portions and features of some embodiments may be included in, or substituted for, those of other embodiments. Embodiments set forth in the claims encompass all available equivalents of those claims.

When a STA is in power save mode and doze state, the AP cannot transmit any frames to the STA, and therefore buffers these frames (called BUs for buffered units) in its memory, waiting to be able to deliver these BUs to the STA when it will transition to the awake state.

Beacon frames are sent generally every 100 ms, and carry a TIM element, that includes a partial virtual bitmap, that has one bit for every associated STA (bit with the index corresponding to the AID of the STA). For each STA that is in power save mode and doze state, the bit is set to 1 to indicate that the AP has buffered traffic for the STA, and that it shall send a PS-Poll or U-APSD trigger frame or any other indication that it is in the awake state to the AP, so that the AP sends the BUs to the STA. This bit is set to 0 if the AP has no BUs for the STA.

Thanks to this, the STA that wants to save power goes into power save mode and doze state, and just wakes up to receive some beacons, and read the TIM element to see if the AP has any BUs for it. If it does, the STA will then wake up to retrieve the data. If it does not, it will go back to doze state until the next beacon that it wants to receive.

In 11ax, the use of the TIM partial virtual bitmap is being extended. Opportunistic power save (OPS) is an example for this. It uses the partial virtual bitmap to provide an information to all the associated STAs if they are scheduled or not in the upcoming OPS period. Similarly, that information is carried in a single bit per STA (the bit in the index corresponding to its AID in the partial virtual bitmap in the TIM element).

In EHT, it is intended to further extend the use of the TIM partial virtual bitmap. For instance, it is being planned to include in the beacon of one AP of an AP MLLE, not only the TIM element regarding the STAs that are associated with the AP, but also an ML-TIM, which provides the same function, but for the STAs that are associated with the other APs of the AP MLLE. This way, a STA that belongs to a STA MLLE and can operate on different links (with different APs), will be able to monitor only one link, and reading the beacon, will know if the AP has buffered data for the STA on the different links (and not only on the current link).

Similarly, it is intend to provide the TIM information not only in beacons every 100 ms, but also more frequency (every 20 ms) to reduce latency. This way, if a STA is in doze state and monitors the beacons to know if the AP has something to send to it, and is expecting low latency traffic, it can monitor these new frames sent every 20 ms instead of every 100 ms to reduce the latency.

Because of this, more and more of these TIM elements (or equivalent bitmaps) may be included in beacons and management/control/action frames.

The size of the partial virtual bitmap subfield in TIM element is quite large today (up to 251 bytes), as it needs to cover the whole range of AIDs that are assigned to STAs associated with the AP. In general, the closer the AIDs are to each other, the smaller the bitmap size (basically if there are no unused AIDs in the range of AIDs assigned to associated STAs).

As STAs come and go (associated and disassociate (or stay)), it is hard to keep a range of AIDs that are all adjacent to each other.

Even worse, when extending the use of TIM partial virtual bitmap to multi-link, the following example can arise:

AP1 (2.4 GHz), AP2 (5 GHz) are part of an AP MLLE

AP1 has 40 STAs:

-   -   20 STAs with even AIDs that are legacy STAs     -   20 STAs with odd AIDs that are EHT STAs (and are multi-link and         get an AID also at 5 GHz with AP2).

If AP1 wants to include partial virtual bitmap in a TIM element in its beacon for the STAs associated to AP1, the bitmap for AP1 is then 40 bits minimum.

Similarly, if AP1 wants to include partial virtual bitmap in an ML-TIM element in its beacon for the STAs associated to AP2, the bitmap size would be 40 as well (while it could be 20 as it would only be for EHT STAs) because the distribution of AIDs between legacy and EHT are not grouped together (based on when they arrived and associated with the AP).

Example embodiments of the present disclosure relate to systems, methods, and devices for association identification (AID) re-assignment.

Currently the AID is assigned to a STA during association (it is included in the association response frame) and is currently kept unchanged until the association ends.

In one or more embodiments, an AP can re-assign the AID of a STA after association, without going through disassociation/re-association.

In one or more embodiments, in a multi-link concept, an AP MLLE can assign an AID to a STA of a STA MLLE during the multi-link setup phase (or association).

In one or more embodiments, it can re-assign/update the AIDs of the STAs of a STA MLLE after the setup phase, without going through disassociation/re-association.

In one or more embodiments, an AID re-assignment system may define a frame (probably a management frame, like an action frame) that could be called “AID Update” frame, and that contains an AID field, which will be the new AID that is used by the STA. This frame can also contain the target time at which the update will take effect. At and after that time, the new AID will be used by the STA and the old AID will no longer be used. Before that time, the old AID still applies. This frame would be unicasted to the STA and have the RA field set to the MAC address of the STA and the TA field set to the MAC address of the AP.

802.11ah defined an AID switch response frame and an AID switch request frame that contains an AID Response element and an AID request element respectively. These frames may be reused. In such case, a way may be defined that the AP to send an unsolicited AID switch Response frame without having received an AID switch request frame from the STA.

In one or more embodiments, a protected version of such a frame may be defined.

In one or more embodiments, an AID re-assignment system may define a broadcast version of an AID Update frame that allows an AP to update the AIDs of multiple STAs. This frame would then be sent to the Broadcast address, and would include multiple subfields (one for each STA that gets updated), with each subfield including the Old AID and the New AID. This frame would also optionally contain the target time at which this change will take effect.

This broadcast version of AID Update can also be an element that is included in beacon or any other management frames. It may be proposed to define a requirement for a STA to monitor if it has stored the right AID, or to ensure that it will be awake at specific times in order to collect the new updated AID assignment.

To check if the AID is correct, an AID Update Count value may be defined, that is updated every time an AID update has been made or is being made. The STA updates the new AID Update Count every time it updated the AID, and the AP increments the AID Update Count value every time it generates a new update. That AID Update Count would be included in beacons or any management frames that is carrying a TIM bitmap. If the AID Update Count does not match with its record, the STA would need to get the new AID, which can be present in the beacon/management frame, or, if not present, it would need to make a request to the AP to collect the right information.

In one or more embodiments, an AID re-assignment system may define a new AID Update Request frame, that does not need to include any information, and that is sent to the associated AP and that is requesting the AP to provide in response the AID Update frame with the new AID assigned to the STA. If the time at which the AID change was made, and during the time the STA identified that the AID has changed and the time it gets the new AID, it may be proposed that the STA shall be in the awake state (active mode for instance) until the time it will get the new AID, as it is not capable of getting its information in TIM elements for instance.

Re-assignments target time or intervals can be advertised in beacons or association frames (multi-link setup frames), and would mean that each STA shall wake up and monitor the beacon at that target time to update its AID.

In one or more embodiments, AID re-assignment system may extend that concept to multiple links, so that AIDs can be changed for a STA from a non-AP MLLE that is operating on another link than the one used to send the frame to update the AID, or so that AIDs of multiple links are changed at the same time.

The above descriptions are for purposes of illustration and are not meant to be limiting. Numerous other examples, configurations, processes, algorithms, etc., may exist, some of which are described in greater detail below. Example embodiments will now be described with reference to the accompanying figures.

FIG. 1A is a network diagram illustrating an example network environment of AID re-assignment, according to some example embodiments of the present disclosure. Wireless network 100 may include one or more user devices 120 and one or more access points(s) (AP) 102, which may communicate in accordance with IEEE 802.11 communication standards. The user device(s) 120 may be mobile devices that are non-stationary (e.g., not having fixed locations) or may be stationary devices.

In some embodiments, the user devices 120 and the AP 102 may include one or more computer systems similar to that of the functional diagram of FIG. 7 and/or the example machine/system of FIG. 8.

One or more illustrative user device(s) 120 and/or AP(s) 102 may be operable by one or more user(s) 110. It should be noted that any addressable unit may be a station (STA). An STA may take on multiple distinct characteristics, each of which shape its function. For example, a single addressable unit might simultaneously be a portable STA, a quality-of-service (QoS) STA, a dependent STA, and a hidden STA. The one or more illustrative user device(s) 120 and the AP(s) 102 may be STAs. The one or more illustrative user device(s) 120 and/or AP(s) 102 may operate as a personal basic service set (PBSS) control point/access point (PCP/AP). The user device(s) 120 (e.g., 124, 126, or 128) and/or AP(s) 102 may include any suitable processor-driven device including, but not limited to, a mobile device or a non-mobile, e.g., a static device. For example, user device(s) 120 and/or AP(s) 102 may include, a user equipment (UE), a station (STA), an access point (AP), a software enabled AP (SoftAP), a personal computer (PC), a wearable wireless device (e.g., bracelet, watch, glasses, ring, etc.), a desktop computer, a mobile computer, a laptop computer, an Ultrabook™ computer, a notebook computer, a tablet computer, a server computer, a handheld computer, a handheld device, an internet of things (IoT) device, a sensor device, a PDA device, a handheld PDA device, an on-board device, an off-board device, a hybrid device (e.g., combining cellular phone functionalities with PDA device functionalities), a consumer device, a vehicular device, a non-vehicular device, a mobile or portable device, a non-mobile or non-portable device, a mobile phone, a cellular telephone, a PCS device, a PDA device which incorporates a wireless communication device, a mobile or portable GPS device, a DVB device, a relatively small computing device, a non-desktop computer, a “carry small live large” (CSLL) device, an ultra mobile device (UMD), an ultra mobile PC (UMPC), a mobile internet device (MID), an “origami” device or computing device, a device that supports dynamically composable computing (DCC), a context-aware device, a video device, an audio device, an A/V device, a set-top-box (STB), a blu-ray disc (BD) player, a BD recorder, a digital video disc (DVD) player, a high definition (HD) DVD player, a DVD recorder, a HD DVD recorder, a personal video recorder (PVR), a broadcast HD receiver, a video source, an audio source, a video sink, an audio sink, a stereo tuner, a broadcast radio receiver, a flat panel display, a personal media player (PMP), a digital video camera (DVC), a digital audio player, a speaker, an audio receiver, an audio amplifier, a gaming device, a data source, a data sink, a digital still camera (DSC), a media player, a smartphone, a television, a music player, or the like. Other devices, including smart devices such as lamps, climate control, car components, household components, appliances, etc. may also be included in this list.

As used herein, the term “Internet of Things (IoT) device” is used to refer to any object (e.g., an appliance, a sensor, etc.) that has an addressable interface (e.g., an Internet protocol (IP) address, a Bluetooth identifier (ID), a near-field communication (NFC) ID, etc.) and can transmit information to one or more other devices over a wired or wireless connection. An IoT device may have a passive communication interface, such as a quick response (QR) code, a radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag, an NFC tag, or the like, or an active communication interface, such as a modem, a transceiver, a transmitter-receiver, or the like. An IoT device can have a particular set of attributes (e.g., a device state or status, such as whether the IoT device is on or off, open or closed, idle or active, available for task execution or busy, and so on, a cooling or heating function, an environmental monitoring or recording function, a light-emitting function, a sound-emitting function, etc.) that can be embedded in and/or controlled/monitored by a central processing unit (CPU), microprocessor, ASIC, or the like, and configured for connection to an IoT network such as a local ad-hoc network or the Internet. For example, IoT devices may include, but are not limited to, refrigerators, toasters, ovens, microwaves, freezers, dishwashers, dishes, hand tools, clothes washers, clothes dryers, furnaces, air conditioners, thermostats, televisions, light fixtures, vacuum cleaners, sprinklers, electricity meters, gas meters, etc., so long as the devices are equipped with an addressable communications interface for communicating with the IoT network. IoT devices may also include cell phones, desktop computers, laptop computers, tablet computers, personal digital assistants (PDAs), etc. Accordingly, the IoT network may be comprised of a combination of “legacy” Internet-accessible devices (e.g., laptop or desktop computers, cell phones, etc.) in addition to devices that do not typically have Internet-connectivity (e.g., dishwashers, etc.).

The user device(s) 120 and/or AP(s) 102 may also include mesh stations in, for example, a mesh network, in accordance with one or more IEEE 802.11 standards and/or 3GPP standards.

Any of the user device(s) 120 (e.g., user devices 124, 126, 128), and AP(s) 102 may be configured to communicate with each other via one or more communications networks 130 and/or 135 wirelessly or wired. The user device(s) 120 may also communicate peer-to-peer or directly with each other with or without the AP(s) 102. Any of the communications networks 130 and/or 135 may include, but not limited to, any one of a combination of different types of suitable communications networks such as, for example, broadcasting networks, cable networks, public networks (e.g., the Internet), private networks, wireless networks, cellular networks, or any other suitable private and/or public networks. Further, any of the communications networks 130 and/or 135 may have any suitable communication range associated therewith and may include, for example, global networks (e.g., the Internet), metropolitan area networks (MANs), wide area networks (WANs), local area networks (LANs), or personal area networks (PANs). In addition, any of the communications networks 130 and/or 135 may include any type of medium over which network traffic may be carried including, but not limited to, coaxial cable, twisted-pair wire, optical fiber, a hybrid fiber coaxial (HFC) medium, microwave terrestrial transceivers, radio frequency communication mediums, white space communication mediums, ultra-high frequency communication mediums, satellite communication mediums, or any combination thereof.

Any of the user device(s) 120 (e.g., user devices 124, 126, 128) and AP(s) 102 may include one or more communications antennas. The one or more communications antennas may be any suitable type of antennas corresponding to the communications protocols used by the user device(s) 120 (e.g., user devices 124, 126 and 128), and AP(s) 102. Some non-limiting examples of suitable communications antennas include Wi-Fi antennas, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 family of standards compatible antennas, directional antennas, non-directional antennas, dipole antennas, folded dipole antennas, patch antennas, multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) antennas, omnidirectional antennas, quasi-omnidirectional antennas, or the like. The one or more communications antennas may be communicatively coupled to a radio component to transmit and/or receive signals, such as communications signals to and/or from the user devices 120 and/or AP(s) 102.

Any of the user device(s) 120 (e.g., user devices 124, 126, 128), and AP(s) 102 may be configured to perform directional transmission and/or directional reception in conjunction with wirelessly communicating in a wireless network. Any of the user device(s) 120 (e.g., user devices 124, 126, 128), and AP(s) 102 may be configured to perform such directional transmission and/or reception using a set of multiple antenna arrays (e.g., DMG antenna arrays or the like). Each of the multiple antenna arrays may be used for transmission and/or reception in a particular respective direction or range of directions. Any of the user device(s) 120 (e.g., user devices 124, 126, 128), and AP(s) 102 may be configured to perform any given directional transmission towards one or more defined transmit sectors. Any of the user device(s) 120 (e.g., user devices 124, 126, 128), and AP(s) 102 may be configured to perform any given directional reception from one or more defined receive sectors.

MIMO beamforming in a wireless network may be accomplished using RF beamforming and/or digital beamforming. In some embodiments, in performing a given MIMO transmission, user devices 120 and/or AP(s) 102 may be configured to use all or a subset of its one or more communications antennas to perform MIMO beamforming.

Any of the user devices 120 (e.g., user devices 124, 126, 128), and AP(s) 102 may include any suitable radio and/or transceiver for transmitting and/or receiving radio frequency (RF) signals in the bandwidth and/or channels corresponding to the communications protocols utilized by any of the user device(s) 120 and AP(s) 102 to communicate with each other. The radio components may include hardware and/or software to modulate and/or demodulate communications signals according to pre-established transmission protocols. The radio components may further have hardware and/or software instructions to communicate via one or more Wi-Fi and/or Wi-Fi direct protocols, as standardized by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standards. In certain example embodiments, the radio component, in cooperation with the communications antennas, may be configured to communicate via 2.4 GHz channels (e.g. 802.11b, 802.11g, 802.11n, 802.11ax), 5 GHz channels (e.g. 802.11n, 802.11ac, 802.11ax), or 60 GHZ channels (e.g. 802.11ad, 802.11ay). 800 MHz channels (e.g. 802.11ah). The communications antennas may operate at 28 GHz and 40 GHz. It should be understood that this list of communication channels in accordance with certain 802.11 standards is only a partial list and that other 802.11 standards may be used (e.g., Next Generation Wi-Fi, or other standards). In some embodiments, non-Wi-Fi protocols may be used for communications between devices, such as Bluetooth, dedicated short-range communication (DSRC), Ultra-High Frequency (UHF) (e.g. IEEE 802.11af, IEEE 802.22), white band frequency (e.g., white spaces), or other packetized radio communications. The radio component may include any known receiver and baseband suitable for communicating via the communications protocols. The radio component may further include a low noise amplifier (LNA), additional signal amplifiers, an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter, one or more buffers, and digital baseband.

In one embodiment, and with reference to FIG. 1A, AP 102 may facilitate AID re-assignment 142 with one or more user devices 120.

In FIG. 1, there is shown that each of the user devices (STAs) is considered as an MLD, where the user device may comprise one or more logical entity devices. For example, it is shown that an AP MLD 102 may comprise AP 1, . . . , AP N, where N is a positive integer and that STA MLD 124 may comprise STA 1, . . . , STA M, where M is a positive integer.

It is understood that the above descriptions are for purposes of illustration and are not meant to be limiting.

FIG. 1B depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for a multi-link device (MLD) between two logical entities, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 1B, there are shown two multi-link logical entities on either side which includes multiple STAs that can set up links with each other. A multi-link logical entity may be a logical entity that contains one or more STAs. The logical entity has one MAC data service interface and primitives to the logical link control (LLC) and a single address associated with the interface, which can be used to communicate on the distribution system medium (DSM). It should be noted that a Multi-link logical entity allows STAs within the multi-link logical entity to have the same MAC address. It should also be noted that the exact name can be changed.

In this example of FIG. 1B, the multi-link logical entity 1 and multi-link logical entity 2 may be two separate physical devices, where each one comprises a number of virtual or logical devices. For example, multi-link logical entity 1 may comprise three STAs, STA1.1, STA1.2, and STA1.3 and multi-link logical entity 2 that may comprise three STAs, STA2.1, STA2.2, and STA2.3. The example shows that logical device STA1.1 is communicating with logical device STA2.1 over link 1, that logical device STA1.2 is communicating with logical device STA2.2 over link 2, and that device STA1.3 is communicating with logical device STA2.3 over link 3.

FIG. 1C depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for a multi-link device (MLD) between AP with logical entities and a non-AP with logical entities, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 1C, there are shown two multi-link logical entities on either side which includes multiple STAs that can set up links with each other. For infrastructure framework, a multi-link AP logical entity may include APs (e.g., AP1, AP2, and AP3) on one side, and multi-link non-AP logical entity, which may include non-APs (STA1, STA2, and STA3) on the other side. The detailed definition is shown below. Multi-link AP logical entity (AP MLLE also can be referred to as AP MLD): A multi-link logical entity, where each STA within the multi-link logical entity is an EHT AP. It should be noted that the term MLLE and MLD are interchangeable and indicate the same type of entity. Throughout this disclosure, MLLE may be used but anywhere the MLLE term is used, it can be replaced with MLD. Multi-link non-AP logical entity (non-AP MLLE, also can be referred to as non-AP MLD): A multi-link logical entity, where each STA within the multi-link logical entity is a non-AP EHT STA. It should be noted that this framework is a natural extension from the one link operation between two STAs, which are AP and non-AP STA under the infrastructure framework (e.g., when an AP is used as a medium for communication between STAs).

In the example of FIG. 1C, the multi-link AP logical entity and multi-link non-AP logical entity may be two separate physical devices, where each one comprises a number of virtual or logical devices. For example, the multi-link AP logical entity may comprise three APs, AP1 operating on 2.4 GHz, AP2 operating on 5 GHz, and AP3 operating on 6 GHz. Further, the multi-link non-AP logical entity may comprise three non-AP STAs, STA1 communicating with AP1 on link 1, STA2 communicating with AP2 on link 2, and STA3 communicating with AP3 on link 3.

The multi-link AP logical entity is shown in FIG. 1C to have access to a distribution system (DS), which is a system used to interconnect a set of BSSs to create an extended service set (ESS). The multi-link AP logical entity is also shown in FIG. 1C to have access a distribution system medium (DSM), which is the medium used by a DS for BSS interconnections. Simply put, DS and DSM allow the AP to communicate with different BSSs.

It should be understood that although the example shows three logical entities within the multi-link AP logical entity and the three logical entities within the multi-link non-AP logical entity, this is merely for illustration purposes and that other numbers of logical entities with each of the multi-link AP and non-AP logical entities may be envisioned.

FIG. 2 depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for AID re-assignment, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 2, there is shown an AID Update frame from an AP 201 to an STA 203. The AP 201 and the STA 203 may have already performed an association process together and the AP 201 may have assigned a first AID (old AID in FIG. 2) to the STA. An AID is assigned to a STA 203 during association (it is included in the association response frame) and is currently kept unchanged until the association ends. The AP 201 may be an AP MLD such that it has multiple logical APs in it and the STA 203 may be an non-AP MLD (also can be referred to as STA MLD) such that it has multiple logical STAs in it. The AP 201 and the STA 203 may be devices such as the devices shown in FIGS. 1B and 1C.

Although not shown in this figure, it should be understood that the frame exchange can happen on any link of the one or more links between two MLD devices (e.g., the AP and STA MLDs of FIGS. 1B and 1C).

In one or more embodiments, the AP 201 can re-assign/update the AIDs of the STAs of the STA MLD (e.g., STA 203) after the setup phase, without going through disassociation/re-association.

In one or more embodiments, the AP 201 may use a specific frame (probably a management frame, like an action frame) that could be called “AID Update” frame 204, which contains a field that comprises the new AID that is to be used by the STA 203 at a particular time frame. This frame can also contain the target time at which the update will take effect. At and after that time, the new AID will be used by the STA MLD (e.g., STA 203) and the old AID will no longer be used. Before that time, the old AID still applies. This frame would be unicasted to the STA and have the RA field set to the MAC address of the STA and the TA field set to the MAC address of the AP.

In FIG. 2, the AP 201 may send an “AID Update” frame to a STA to update its AID value along with the target update time 206. Upon receiving the AID Update frame 204, the STA 203 sends an Ack frame and starts using the new AID value after the target update time from the end of the Ack frame transmission. It is understood that the above descriptions are for purposes of illustration and are not meant to be limiting.

FIG. 3 depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for AID re-assignment, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 3, there is shown an AID Update Request frame from a STA followed by AID Update frame. This is similar to FIG. 2, but with a request sent from the STA to the AP in order to update the AID assigned to the STA. Although not shown in this figure, it should be understood that the frame exchange can happen on any link of the one or more links between two MLD devices (e.g., the AP and STA MLDs of FIGS. 1B and 1C).

FIG. 3 shows an example scenario where a STA (e.g., the STA MLD of FIG. 1C) sends an “AID Update Request” frame to request an update of its AID value. Upon receiving the “AID Update Request” frame, the AP sends an “AID Update” frame with new AID value allocated to the STA along with the target update time (e.g., the AP MLD of FIG. 1B). The STA assumes the new AID value after the target update time from the end of the Ack frame transmission. It is understood that the above descriptions are for purposes of illustration and are not meant to be limiting.

FIG. 4 depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for AID re-assignment, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 4, there is shown AID Update frame from the AP.

FIG. 4 shows an example scenario where an AP broadcast AID Update information in a Beacon frame. Beacon frame may include a single or multiple AID Update elements for multiple STAs associated with the AP. For example, a single AID Update element may have multiple pairs of (Old AID, New AID) values along with the target update time. AID Update element may be an information element (IE) that is included in the beacon frame or a field in the beacon frame. Since the Beacon frame is typically sent a specific intervals, the STAs would know when to expect to receive the Beacon frame. It is understood that a beacon frame is one of the management frames in IEEE 802.11 based WLANs. The beacon frame may contain information about the network. Beacon frames may be transmitted periodically to announce the presence of a wireless LAN. Beacon frames may be transmitted by the AP in an infrastructure basic service set (BSS). In an IBSS network, beacon generation may be distributed among the STAs. A beacon interval represents the amount of time between beacon transmissions. Before a station enters power save mode, the station needs the beacon interval to know when to wake up to receive the beacon (and learn whether there are buffered frames at the access point).

STAs who are assigned new AID values assume the new AID values after the target update time from the end of the Beacon transmission. For example, if the AP wants to have an immediate update of AID values, then the target update time can be set to zero.

In multi-link setup, if multiple AIDs are assigned to a non-AP MLLE, then AP can update AID per link by using link ID indication. For example, an AP can include multiple (Link ID, Old AID, New AID) tuples to update AID per link. It is understood that the above descriptions are for purposes of illustration and are not meant to be limiting.

FIG. 5 depicts an illustrative schematic diagram for AID re-assignment, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

Referring to FIG. 5, there is shown an AID Update for multiple links for multi-link MLLEs.

FIG. 5 shows an example scenario where an AP sends an “AID Update” frame to a STA in non-AP MLLE with target update time to update AIDs for multiple links. AID Update frame may have multiple (Link ID, Old AID, New AID) tuple per link. Upon receiving the AID Update frame, the STA on link 1 updates AIDs on link 1 and link 2 after the target update time from the end of the Ack frame transmission. It is understood that the above descriptions are for purposes of illustration and are not meant to be limiting.

FIG. 6 illustrates a flow diagram of illustrative process 600 for a AID re-assignment system, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure.

At block 602, a device (e.g., the user device(s) 120 and/or the AP 102 of FIG. 1) may perform an association with a station multi-link device (STA MLD), wherein the STA MLD may comprise one or more logical entities defining separate station devices.

At block 604, the device may assign a first association identification (AID) to the STA MLD.

At block 606, the device may establish one or more links with the STA MLD.

At block 608, the device may cause to send an indication of an assignment of a second AID to the STA MLD. The second AID takes effect during a target update time. The indication is included in a beacon frame that is sent at a beacon interval. The assignment of the second AID is established without first disassociating or a re-associating with the STA MLD. The second AID replaces the first AID. The indication is included in an AID update frame. The AID update frame may comprise an AID field.

At block 610, the device may communicate with the STA MLD using the second AID.

It is understood that the above descriptions are for purposes of illustration and are not meant to be limiting.

FIG. 7 shows a functional diagram of an exemplary communication station 700, in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure. In one embodiment, FIG. 7 illustrates a functional block diagram of a communication station that may be suitable for use as an AP 102 (FIG. 1A) or a user device 120 (FIG. 1A) in accordance with some embodiments. The communication station 700 may also be suitable for use as a handheld device, a mobile device, a cellular telephone, a smartphone, a tablet, a netbook, a wireless terminal, a laptop computer, a wearable computer device, a femtocell, a high data rate (HDR) subscriber station, an access point, an access terminal, or other personal communication system (PCS) device.

The communication station 700 may include communications circuitry 702 and a transceiver 710 for transmitting and receiving signals to and from other communication stations using one or more antennas 701. The communications circuitry 702 may include circuitry that can operate the physical layer (PHY) communications and/or medium access control (MAC) communications for controlling access to the wireless medium, and/or any other communications layers for transmitting and receiving signals. The communication station 700 may also include processing circuitry 706 and memory 708 arranged to perform the operations described herein. In some embodiments, the communications circuitry 702 and the processing circuitry 706 may be configured to perform operations detailed in the above figures, diagrams, and flows.

In accordance with some embodiments, the communications circuitry 702 may be arranged to contend for a wireless medium and configure frames or packets for communicating over the wireless medium. The communications circuitry 702 may be arranged to transmit and receive signals. The communications circuitry 702 may also include circuitry for modulation/demodulation, upconversion/downconversion, filtering, amplification, etc. In some embodiments, the processing circuitry 706 of the communication station 700 may include one or more processors. In other embodiments, two or more antennas 701 may be coupled to the communications circuitry 702 arranged for sending and receiving signals. The memory 708 may store information for configuring the processing circuitry 706 to perform operations for configuring and transmitting message frames and performing the various operations described herein. The memory 708 may include any type of memory, including non-transitory memory, for storing information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, the memory 708 may include a computer-readable storage device, read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash-memory devices and other storage devices and media.

In some embodiments, the communication station 700 may be part of a portable wireless communication device, such as a personal digital assistant (PDA), a laptop or portable computer with wireless communication capability, a web tablet, a wireless telephone, a smartphone, a wireless headset, a pager, an instant messaging device, a digital camera, an access point, a television, a medical device (e.g., a heart rate monitor, a blood pressure monitor, etc.), a wearable computer device, or another device that may receive and/or transmit information wirelessly.

In some embodiments, the communication station 700 may include one or more antennas 701. The antennas 701 may include one or more directional or omnidirectional antennas, including, for example, dipole antennas, monopole antennas, patch antennas, loop antennas, microstrip antennas, or other types of antennas suitable for transmission of RF signals. In some embodiments, instead of two or more antennas, a single antenna with multiple apertures may be used. In these embodiments, each aperture may be considered a separate antenna. In some multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) embodiments, the antennas may be effectively separated for spatial diversity and the different channel characteristics that may result between each of the antennas and the antennas of a transmitting station.

In some embodiments, the communication station 700 may include one or more of a keyboard, a display, a non-volatile memory port, multiple antennas, a graphics processor, an application processor, speakers, and other mobile device elements. The display may be an LCD screen including a touch screen.

Although the communication station 700 is illustrated as having several separate functional elements, two or more of the functional elements may be combined and may be implemented by combinations of software-configured elements, such as processing elements including digital signal processors (DSPs), and/or other hardware elements. For example, some elements may include one or more microprocessors, DSPs, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) and combinations of various hardware and logic circuitry for performing at least the functions described herein. In some embodiments, the functional elements of the communication station 700 may refer to one or more processes operating on one or more processing elements.

Certain embodiments may be implemented in one or a combination of hardware, firmware, and software. Other embodiments may also be implemented as instructions stored on a computer-readable storage device, which may be read and executed by at least one processor to perform the operations described herein. A computer-readable storage device may include any non-transitory memory mechanism for storing information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer). For example, a computer-readable storage device may include read-only memory (ROM), random-access memory (RAM), magnetic disk storage media, optical storage media, flash-memory devices, and other storage devices and media. In some embodiments, the communication station 700 may include one or more processors and may be configured with instructions stored on a computer-readable storage device.

FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of an example of a machine 800 or system upon which any one or more of the techniques (e.g., methodologies) discussed herein may be performed. In other embodiments, the machine 800 may operate as a standalone device or may be connected (e.g., networked) to other machines. In a networked deployment, the machine 800 may operate in the capacity of a server machine, a client machine, or both in server-client network environments. In an example, the machine 800 may act as a peer machine in peer-to-peer (P2P) (or other distributed) network environments. The machine 800 may be a personal computer (PC), a tablet PC, a set-top box (STB), a personal digital assistant (PDA), a mobile telephone, a wearable computer device, a web appliance, a network router, a switch or bridge, or any machine capable of executing instructions (sequential or otherwise) that specify actions to be taken by that machine, such as a base station. Further, while only a single machine is illustrated, the term “machine” shall also be taken to include any collection of machines that individually or jointly execute a set (or multiple sets) of instructions to perform any one or more of the methodologies discussed herein, such as cloud computing, software as a service (SaaS), or other computer cluster configurations.

Examples, as described herein, may include or may operate on logic or a number of components, modules, or mechanisms. Modules are tangible entities (e.g., hardware) capable of performing specified operations when operating. A module includes hardware. In an example, the hardware may be specifically configured to carry out a specific operation (e.g., hardwired). In another example, the hardware may include configurable execution units (e.g., transistors, circuits, etc.) and a computer readable medium containing instructions where the instructions configure the execution units to carry out a specific operation when in operation. The configuring may occur under the direction of the executions units or a loading mechanism. Accordingly, the execution units are communicatively coupled to the computer-readable medium when the device is operating. In this example, the execution units may be a member of more than one module. For example, under operation, the execution units may be configured by a first set of instructions to implement a first module at one point in time and reconfigured by a second set of instructions to implement a second module at a second point in time.

The machine (e.g., computer system) 800 may include a hardware processor 802 (e.g., a central processing unit (CPU), a graphics processing unit (GPU), a hardware processor core, or any combination thereof), a main memory 804 and a static memory 806, some or all of which may communicate with each other via an interlink (e.g., bus) 808. The machine 800 may further include a power management device 832, a graphics display device 810, an alphanumeric input device 812 (e.g., a keyboard), and a user interface (UI) navigation device 814 (e.g., a mouse). In an example, the graphics display device 810, alphanumeric input device 812, and UI navigation device 814 may be a touch screen display. The machine 800 may additionally include a storage device (i.e., drive unit) 816, a signal generation device 818 (e.g., a speaker), a AID re-assignment device 819, a network interface device/transceiver 820 coupled to antenna(s) 830, and one or more sensors 828, such as a global positioning system (GPS) sensor, a compass, an accelerometer, or other sensor. The machine 800 may include an output controller 834, such as a serial (e.g., universal serial bus (USB), parallel, or other wired or wireless (e.g., infrared (IR), near field communication (NFC), etc.) connection to communicate with or control one or more peripheral devices (e.g., a printer, a card reader, etc.)). The operations in accordance with one or more example embodiments of the present disclosure may be carried out by a baseband processor. The baseband processor may be configured to generate corresponding baseband signals. The baseband processor may further include physical layer (PHY) and medium access control layer (MAC) circuitry, and may further interface with the hardware processor 802 for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the main memory 804, the storage device 816, and/or the AID re-assignment device 819. The baseband processor may be provided on a single radio card, a single chip, or an integrated circuit (IC).

The storage device 816 may include a machine readable medium 822 on which is stored one or more sets of data structures or instructions 824 (e.g., software) embodying or utilized by any one or more of the techniques or functions described herein. The instructions 824 may also reside, completely or at least partially, within the main memory 804, within the static memory 806, or within the hardware processor 802 during execution thereof by the machine 800. In an example, one or any combination of the hardware processor 802, the main memory 804, the static memory 806, or the storage device 816 may constitute machine-readable media.

The AID re-assignment device 819 may carry out or perform any of the operations and processes (e.g., process 600) described and shown above.

It is understood that the above are only a subset of what the AID re-assignment device 819 may be configured to perform and that other functions included throughout this disclosure may also be performed by the AID re-assignment device 819.

While the machine-readable medium 822 is illustrated as a single medium, the term “machine-readable medium” may include a single medium or multiple media (e.g., a centralized or distributed database, and/or associated caches and servers) configured to store the one or more instructions 824.

Various embodiments may be implemented fully or partially in software and/or firmware. This software and/or firmware may take the form of instructions contained in or on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. Those instructions may then be read and executed by one or more processors to enable performance of the operations described herein. The instructions may be in any suitable form, such as but not limited to source code, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code, dynamic code, and the like. Such a computer-readable medium may include any tangible non-transitory medium for storing information in a form readable by one or more computers, such as but not limited to read only memory (ROM); random access memory (RAM); magnetic disk storage media; optical storage media; a flash memory, etc.

The term “machine-readable medium” may include any medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions for execution by the machine 800 and that cause the machine 800 to perform any one or more of the techniques of the present disclosure, or that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying data structures used by or associated with such instructions. Non-limiting machine-readable medium examples may include solid-state memories and optical and magnetic media. In an example, a massed machine-readable medium includes a machine-readable medium with a plurality of particles having resting mass. Specific examples of massed machine-readable media may include non-volatile memory, such as semiconductor memory devices (e.g., electrically programmable read-only memory (EPROM), or electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM)) and flash memory devices; magnetic disks, such as internal hard disks and removable disks; magneto-optical disks; and CD-ROM and DVD-ROM disks.

The instructions 824 may further be transmitted or received over a communications network 826 using a transmission medium via the network interface device/transceiver 820 utilizing any one of a number of transfer protocols (e.g., frame relay, internet protocol (IP), transmission control protocol (TCP), user datagram protocol (UDP), hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP), etc.). Example communications networks may include a local area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN), a packet data network (e.g., the Internet), mobile telephone networks (e.g., cellular networks), plain old telephone (POTS) networks, wireless data networks (e.g., Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 family of standards known as Wi-Fi®, IEEE 802.16 family of standards known as WiMax®), IEEE 802.15.4 family of standards, and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, among others. In an example, the network interface device/transceiver 820 may include one or more physical jacks (e.g., Ethernet, coaxial, or phone jacks) or one or more antennas to connect to the communications network 826. In an example, the network interface device/transceiver 820 may include a plurality of antennas to wirelessly communicate using at least one of single-input multiple-output (SIMO), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), or multiple-input single-output (MISO) techniques. The term “transmission medium” shall be taken to include any intangible medium that is capable of storing, encoding, or carrying instructions for execution by the machine 800 and includes digital or analog communications signals or other intangible media to facilitate communication of such software.

The operations and processes described and shown above may be carried out or performed in any suitable order as desired in various implementations. Additionally, in certain implementations, at least a portion of the operations may be carried out in parallel. Furthermore, in certain implementations, less than or more than the operations described may be performed.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a radio architecture 105A, 105B in accordance with some embodiments that may be implemented in any one of the example AP 102 and/or the example STA 120 of FIG. 1. Radio architecture 105A, 105B may include radio front-end module (FEM) circuitry 904 a-b, radio IC circuitry 906 a-b and baseband processing circuitry 908 a-b. Radio architecture 105A, 105B as shown includes both Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) functionality and Bluetooth (BT) functionality although embodiments are not so limited. In this disclosure, “WLAN” and “Wi-Fi” are used interchangeably.

FEM circuitry 904 a-b may include a WLAN or Wi-Fi FEM circuitry 904 a and a Bluetooth (BT) FEM circuitry 904 b. The WLAN FEM circuitry 904 a may include a receive signal path comprising circuitry configured to operate on WLAN RF signals received from one or more antennas 901, to amplify the received signals and to provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the WLAN radio IC circuitry 906 a for further processing. The BT FEM circuitry 904 b may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry configured to operate on BT RF signals received from one or more antennas 901, to amplify the received signals and to provide the amplified versions of the received signals to the BT radio IC circuitry 906 b for further processing. FEM circuitry 904 a may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry configured to amplify WLAN signals provided by the radio IC circuitry 906 a for wireless transmission by one or more of the antennas 901. In addition, FEM circuitry 904 b may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry configured to amplify BT signals provided by the radio IC circuitry 906 b for wireless transmission by the one or more antennas. In the embodiment of FIG. 9, although FEM 904 a and FEM 904 b are shown as being distinct from one another, embodiments are not so limited, and include within their scope the use of an FEM (not shown) that includes a transmit path and/or a receive path for both WLAN and BT signals, or the use of one or more FEM circuitries where at least some of the FEM circuitries share transmit and/or receive signal paths for both WLAN and BT signals.

Radio IC circuitry 906 a-b as shown may include WLAN radio IC circuitry 906 a and BT radio IC circuitry 906 b. The WLAN radio IC circuitry 906 a may include a receive signal path which may include circuitry to down-convert WLAN RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 904 a and provide baseband signals to WLAN baseband processing circuitry 908 a. BT radio IC circuitry 906 b may in turn include a receive signal path which may include circuitry to down-convert BT RF signals received from the FEM circuitry 904 b and provide baseband signals to BT baseband processing circuitry 908 b. WLAN radio IC circuitry 906 a may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry to up-convert WLAN baseband signals provided by the WLAN baseband processing circuitry 908 a and provide WLAN RF output signals to the FEM circuitry 904 a for subsequent wireless transmission by the one or more antennas 901. BT radio IC circuitry 906 b may also include a transmit signal path which may include circuitry to up-convert BT baseband signals provided by the BT baseband processing circuitry 908 b and provide BT RF output signals to the FEM circuitry 904 b for subsequent wireless transmission by the one or more antennas 901. In the embodiment of FIG. 9, although radio IC circuitries 906 a and 906 b are shown as being distinct from one another, embodiments are not so limited, and include within their scope the use of a radio IC circuitry (not shown) that includes a transmit signal path and/or a receive signal path for both WLAN and BT signals, or the use of one or more radio IC circuitries where at least some of the radio IC circuitries share transmit and/or receive signal paths for both WLAN and BT signals.

Baseband processing circuitry 908 a-b may include a WLAN baseband processing circuitry 908 a and a BT baseband processing circuitry 908 b. The WLAN baseband processing circuitry 908 a may include a memory, such as, for example, a set of RAM arrays in a Fast Fourier Transform or Inverse Fast Fourier Transform block (not shown) of the WLAN baseband processing circuitry 908 a. Each of the WLAN baseband circuitry 908 a and the BT baseband circuitry 908 b may further include one or more processors and control logic to process the signals received from the corresponding WLAN or BT receive signal path of the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b, and to also generate corresponding WLAN or BT baseband signals for the transmit signal path of the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b. Each of the baseband processing circuitries 908 a and 908 b may further include physical layer (PHY) and medium access control layer (MAC) circuitry, and may further interface with a device for generation and processing of the baseband signals and for controlling operations of the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b.

Referring still to FIG. 9, according to the shown embodiment, WLAN-BT coexistence circuitry 913 may include logic providing an interface between the WLAN baseband circuitry 908 a and the BT baseband circuitry 908 b to enable use cases requiring WLAN and BT coexistence. In addition, a switch 903 may be provided between the WLAN FEM circuitry 904 a and the BT FEM circuitry 904 b to allow switching between the WLAN and BT radios according to application needs. In addition, although the antennas 901 are depicted as being respectively connected to the WLAN FEM circuitry 904 a and the BT FEM circuitry 904 b, embodiments include within their scope the sharing of one or more antennas as between the WLAN and BT FEMs, or the provision of more than one antenna connected to each of FEM 904 a or 904 b.

In some embodiments, the front-end module circuitry 904 a-b, the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b, and baseband processing circuitry 908 a-b may be provided on a single radio card, such as wireless radio card 902. In some other embodiments, the one or more antennas 901, the FEM circuitry 904 a-b and the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b may be provided on a single radio card. In some other embodiments, the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b and the baseband processing circuitry 908 a-b may be provided on a single chip or integrated circuit (IC), such as IC 912.

In some embodiments, the wireless radio card 902 may include a WLAN radio card and may be configured for Wi-Fi communications, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some of these embodiments, the radio architecture 105A, 105B may be configured to receive and transmit orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) or orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDMA) communication signals over a multicarrier communication channel. The OFDM or OFDMA signals may comprise a plurality of orthogonal subcarriers.

In some of these multicarrier embodiments, radio architecture 105A, 105B may be part of a Wi-Fi communication station (STA) such as a wireless access point (AP), a base station or a mobile device including a Wi-Fi device. In some of these embodiments, radio architecture 105A, 105B may be configured to transmit and receive signals in accordance with specific communication standards and/or protocols, such as any of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards including, 802.11n-2009, IEEE 802.11-2012, IEEE 802.11-2016, 802.11n-2009, 802.11ac, 802.11ah, 802.11ad, 802.11 ay and/or 802.11ax standards and/or proposed specifications for WLANs, although the scope of embodiments is not limited in this respect. Radio architecture 105A, 105B may also be suitable to transmit and/or receive communications in accordance with other techniques and standards.

In some embodiments, the radio architecture 105A, 105B may be configured for high-efficiency Wi-Fi (HEW) communications in accordance with the IEEE 802.11ax standard. In these embodiments, the radio architecture 105A, 105B may be configured to communicate in accordance with an OFDMA technique, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some other embodiments, the radio architecture 105A, 105B may be configured to transmit and receive signals transmitted using one or more other modulation techniques such as spread spectrum modulation (e.g., direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) and/or frequency hopping code division multiple access (FH-CDMA)), time-division multiplexing (TDM) modulation, and/or frequency-division multiplexing (FDM) modulation, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, as further shown in FIG. 6, the BT baseband circuitry 908 b may be compliant with a Bluetooth (BT) connectivity standard such as Bluetooth, Bluetooth 8.0 or Bluetooth 6.0, or any other iteration of the Bluetooth Standard.

In some embodiments, the radio architecture 105A, 105B may include other radio cards, such as a cellular radio card configured for cellular (e.g., SGPP such as LTE, LTE-Advanced or 7G communications).

In some IEEE 802.11 embodiments, the radio architecture 105A, 105B may be configured for communication over various channel bandwidths including bandwidths having center frequencies of about 900 MHz, 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, and bandwidths of about 2 MHz, 4 MHz, 5 MHz, 5.5 MHz, 6 MHz, 8 MHz, 10 MHz, 20 MHz, 40 MHz, 80 MHz (with contiguous bandwidths) or 80+80 MHz (160 MHz) (with non-contiguous bandwidths). In some embodiments, a 920 MHz channel bandwidth may be used. The scope of the embodiments is not limited with respect to the above center frequencies however.

FIG. 10 illustrates WLAN FEM circuitry 904 a in accordance with some embodiments. Although the example of FIG. 10 is described in conjunction with the WLAN FEM circuitry 904 a, the example of FIG. 10 may be described in conjunction with the example BT FEM circuitry 904 b (FIG. 9), although other circuitry configurations may also be suitable.

In some embodiments, the FEM circuitry 904 a may include a TX/RX switch 1002 to switch between transmit mode and receive mode operation. The FEM circuitry 904 a may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 904 a may include a low-noise amplifier (LNA) 1006 to amplify received RF signals 1003 and provide the amplified received RF signals 1007 as an output (e.g., to the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b (FIG. 9)). The transmit signal path of the circuitry 904 a may include a power amplifier (PA) to amplify input RF signals 1009 (e.g., provided by the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b), and one or more filters 1012, such as band-pass filters (BPFs), low-pass filters (LPFs) or other types of filters, to generate RF signals 1015 for subsequent transmission (e.g., by one or more of the antennas 901 (FIG. 9)) via an example duplexer 1014.

In some dual-mode embodiments for Wi-Fi communication, the FEM circuitry 904 a may be configured to operate in either the 2.4 GHz frequency spectrum or the 5 GHz frequency spectrum. In these embodiments, the receive signal path of the FEM circuitry 904 a may include a receive signal path duplexer 1004 to separate the signals from each spectrum as well as provide a separate LNA 1006 for each spectrum as shown. In these embodiments, the transmit signal path of the FEM circuitry 904 a may also include a power amplifier 1010 and a filter 1012, such as a BPF, an LPF or another type of filter for each frequency spectrum and a transmit signal path duplexer 1004 to provide the signals of one of the different spectrums onto a single transmit path for subsequent transmission by the one or more of the antennas 901 (FIG. 9). In some embodiments, BT communications may utilize the 2.4 GHz signal paths and may utilize the same FEM circuitry 904 a as the one used for WLAN communications.

FIG. 11 illustrates radio IC circuitry 906 a in accordance with some embodiments. The radio IC circuitry 906 a is one example of circuitry that may be suitable for use as the WLAN or BT radio IC circuitry 906 a/906 b (FIG. 9), although other circuitry configurations may also be suitable. Alternatively, the example of FIG. 11 may be described in conjunction with the example BT radio IC circuitry 906 b.

In some embodiments, the radio IC circuitry 906 a may include a receive signal path and a transmit signal path. The receive signal path of the radio IC circuitry 906 a may include at least mixer circuitry 1102, such as, for example, down-conversion mixer circuitry, amplifier circuitry 1106 and filter circuitry 1108. The transmit signal path of the radio IC circuitry 906 a may include at least filter circuitry 1112 and mixer circuitry 1114, such as, for example, up-conversion mixer circuitry. Radio IC circuitry 906 a may also include synthesizer circuitry 1104 for synthesizing a frequency 1105 for use by the mixer circuitry 1102 and the mixer circuitry 1114. The mixer circuitry 1102 and/or 1114 may each, according to some embodiments, be configured to provide direct conversion functionality. The latter type of circuitry presents a much simpler architecture as compared with standard super-heterodyne mixer circuitries, and any flicker noise brought about by the same may be alleviated for example through the use of OFDM modulation. FIG. 11 illustrates only a simplified version of a radio IC circuitry, and may include, although not shown, embodiments where each of the depicted circuitries may include more than one component. For instance, mixer circuitry 1114 may each include one or more mixers, and filter circuitries 1108 and/or 1112 may each include one or more filters, such as one or more BPFs and/or LPFs according to application needs. For example, when mixer circuitries are of the direct-conversion type, they may each include two or more mixers.

In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 1102 may be configured to down-convert RF signals 1007 received from the FEM circuitry 904 a-b (FIG. 9) based on the synthesized frequency 1105 provided by synthesizer circuitry 1104. The amplifier circuitry 1106 may be configured to amplify the down-converted signals and the filter circuitry 1108 may include an LPF configured to remove unwanted signals from the down-converted signals to generate output baseband signals 1107. Output baseband signals 1107 may be provided to the baseband processing circuitry 908 a-b (FIG. 9) for further processing. In some embodiments, the output baseband signals 1107 may be zero-frequency baseband signals, although this is not a requirement. In some embodiments, mixer circuitry 1102 may comprise passive mixers, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 1114 may be configured to up-convert input baseband signals 1111 based on the synthesized frequency 1105 provided by the synthesizer circuitry 1104 to generate RF output signals 1009 for the FEM circuitry 904 a-b. The baseband signals 1111 may be provided by the baseband processing circuitry 908 a-b and may be filtered by filter circuitry 1112. The filter circuitry 1112 may include an LPF or a BPF, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 1102 and the mixer circuitry 1114 may each include two or more mixers and may be arranged for quadrature down-conversion and/or up-conversion respectively with the help of synthesizer 1104. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 1102 and the mixer circuitry 1114 may each include two or more mixers each configured for image rejection (e.g., Hartley image rejection). In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 1102 and the mixer circuitry 1114 may be arranged for direct down-conversion and/or direct up-conversion, respectively. In some embodiments, the mixer circuitry 1102 and the mixer circuitry 1114 may be configured for super-heterodyne operation, although this is not a requirement.

Mixer circuitry 1102 may comprise, according to one embodiment: quadrature passive mixers (e.g., for the in-phase (I) and quadrature phase (Q) paths). In such an embodiment, RF input signal 1007 from FIG. 11 may be down-converted to provide I and Q baseband output signals to be sent to the baseband processor.

Quadrature passive mixers may be driven by zero and ninety-degree time-varying LO switching signals provided by a quadrature circuitry which may be configured to receive a LO frequency (fLO) from a local oscillator or a synthesizer, such as LO frequency 1105 of synthesizer 1104 (FIG. 11). In some embodiments, the LO frequency may be the carrier frequency, while in other embodiments, the LO frequency may be a fraction of the carrier frequency (e.g., one-half the carrier frequency, one-third the carrier frequency). In some embodiments, the zero and ninety-degree time-varying switching signals may be generated by the synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the LO signals may differ in duty cycle (the percentage of one period in which the LO signal is high) and/or offset (the difference between start points of the period). In some embodiments, the LO signals may have an 85% duty cycle and an 80% offset. In some embodiments, each branch of the mixer circuitry (e.g., the in-phase (I) and quadrature phase (Q) path) may operate at an 80% duty cycle, which may result in a significant reduction is power consumption.

The RF input signal 1007 (FIG. 10) may comprise a balanced signal, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. The I and Q baseband output signals may be provided to low-noise amplifier, such as amplifier circuitry 1106 (FIG. 11) or to filter circuitry 1108 (FIG. 11).

In some embodiments, the output baseband signals 1107 and the input baseband signals 1111 may be analog baseband signals, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect. In some alternate embodiments, the output baseband signals 1107 and the input baseband signals 1111 may be digital baseband signals. In these alternate embodiments, the radio IC circuitry may include analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and digital-to-analog converter (DAC) circuitry.

In some dual-mode embodiments, a separate radio IC circuitry may be provided for processing signals for each spectrum, or for other spectrums not mentioned here, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect.

In some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 1104 may be a fractional-N synthesizer or a fractional N/N+1 synthesizer, although the scope of the embodiments is not limited in this respect as other types of frequency synthesizers may be suitable. For example, synthesizer circuitry 1104 may be a delta-sigma synthesizer, a frequency multiplier, or a synthesizer comprising a phase-locked loop with a frequency divider. According to some embodiments, the synthesizer circuitry 1104 may include digital synthesizer circuitry. An advantage of using a digital synthesizer circuitry is that, although it may still include some analog components, its footprint may be scaled down much more than the footprint of an analog synthesizer circuitry. In some embodiments, frequency input into synthesizer circuitry 1104 may be provided by a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO), although that is not a requirement. A divider control input may further be provided by either the baseband processing circuitry 908 a-b (FIG. 9) depending on the desired output frequency 1105. In some embodiments, a divider control input (e.g., N) may be determined from a look-up table (e.g., within a Wi-Fi card) based on a channel number and a channel center frequency as determined or indicated by the example application processor 910. The application processor 910 may include, or otherwise be connected to, one of the example secure signal converter 101 or the example received signal converter 103 (e.g., depending on which device the example radio architecture is implemented in).

In some embodiments, synthesizer circuitry 1104 may be configured to generate a carrier frequency as the output frequency 1105, while in other embodiments, the output frequency 1105 may be a fraction of the carrier frequency (e.g., one-half the carrier frequency, one-third the carrier frequency). In some embodiments, the output frequency 1105 may be a LO frequency (fLO).

FIG. 12 illustrates a functional block diagram of baseband processing circuitry 908 a in accordance with some embodiments. The baseband processing circuitry 908 a is one example of circuitry that may be suitable for use as the baseband processing circuitry 908 a (FIG. 9), although other circuitry configurations may also be suitable. Alternatively, the example of FIG. 11 may be used to implement the example BT baseband processing circuitry 908 b of FIG. 9.

The baseband processing circuitry 908 a may include a receive baseband processor (RX BBP) 1202 for processing receive baseband signals 1109 provided by the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b (FIG. 9) and a transmit baseband processor (TX BBP) 1204 for generating transmit baseband signals 1111 for the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b. The baseband processing circuitry 908 a may also include control logic 1206 for coordinating the operations of the baseband processing circuitry 908 a.

In some embodiments (e.g., when analog baseband signals are exchanged between the baseband processing circuitry 908 a-b and the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b), the baseband processing circuitry 908 a may include ADC 1210 to convert analog baseband signals 1209 received from the radio IC circuitry 906 a-b to digital baseband signals for processing by the RX BBP 1202. In these embodiments, the baseband processing circuitry 908 a may also include DAC 1212 to convert digital baseband signals from the TX BBP 1204 to analog baseband signals 1211.

In some embodiments that communicate OFDM signals or OFDMA signals, such as through baseband processor 908 a, the transmit baseband processor 1204 may be configured to generate OFDM or OFDMA signals as appropriate for transmission by performing an inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT). The receive baseband processor 1202 may be configured to process received OFDM signals or OFDMA signals by performing an FFT. In some embodiments, the receive baseband processor 1202 may be configured to detect the presence of an OFDM signal or OFDMA signal by performing an autocorrelation, to detect a preamble, such as a short preamble, and by performing a cross-correlation, to detect a long preamble. The preambles may be part of a predetermined frame structure for Wi-Fi communication.

Referring back to FIG. 9, in some embodiments, the antennas 901 (FIG. 9) may each comprise one or more directional or omnidirectional antennas, including, for example, dipole antennas, monopole antennas, patch antennas, loop antennas, microstrip antennas or other types of antennas suitable for transmission of RF signals. In some multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) embodiments, the antennas may be effectively separated to take advantage of spatial diversity and the different channel characteristics that may result. Antennas 901 may each include a set of phased-array antennas, although embodiments are not so limited.

Although the radio architecture 105A, 105B is illustrated as having several separate functional elements, one or more of the functional elements may be combined and may be implemented by combinations of software-configured elements, such as processing elements including digital signal processors (DSPs), and/or other hardware elements. For example, some elements may comprise one or more microprocessors, DSPs, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), radio-frequency integrated circuits (RFICs) and combinations of various hardware and logic circuitry for performing at least the functions described herein. In some embodiments, the functional elements may refer to one or more processes operating on one or more processing elements.

The word “exemplary” is used herein to mean “serving as an example, instance, or illustration.” Any embodiment described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other embodiments. The terms “computing device,” “user device,” “communication station,” “station,” “handheld device,” “mobile device,” “wireless device” and “user equipment” (UE) as used herein refers to a wireless communication device such as a cellular telephone, a smartphone, a tablet, a netbook, a wireless terminal, a laptop computer, a femtocell, a high data rate (HDR) subscriber station, an access point, a printer, a point of sale device, an access terminal, or other personal communication system (PCS) device. The device may be either mobile or stationary.

As used within this document, the term “communicate” is intended to include transmitting, or receiving, or both transmitting and receiving. This may be particularly useful in claims when describing the organization of data that is being transmitted by one device and received by another, but only the functionality of one of those devices is required to infringe the claim. Similarly, the bidirectional exchange of data between two devices (both devices transmit and receive during the exchange) may be described as “communicating,” when only the functionality of one of those devices is being claimed. The term “communicating” as used herein with respect to a wireless communication signal includes transmitting the wireless communication signal and/or receiving the wireless communication signal. For example, a wireless communication unit, which is capable of communicating a wireless communication signal, may include a wireless transmitter to transmit the wireless communication signal to at least one other wireless communication unit, and/or a wireless communication receiver to receive the wireless communication signal from at least one other wireless communication unit.

As used herein, unless otherwise specified, the use of the ordinal adjectives “first,” “second,” “third,” etc., to describe a common object, merely indicates that different instances of like objects are being referred to and are not intended to imply that the objects so described must be in a given sequence, either temporally, spatially, in ranking, or in any other manner.

The term “access point” (AP) as used herein may be a fixed station. An access point may also be referred to as an access node, a base station, an evolved node B (eNodeB), or some other similar terminology known in the art. An access terminal may also be called a mobile station, user equipment (UE), a wireless communication device, or some other similar terminology known in the art. Embodiments disclosed herein generally pertain to wireless networks. Some embodiments may relate to wireless networks that operate in accordance with one of the IEEE 802.11 standards.

Some embodiments may be used in conjunction with various devices and systems, for example, a personal computer (PC), a desktop computer, a mobile computer, a laptop computer, a notebook computer, a tablet computer, a server computer, a handheld computer, a handheld device, a personal digital assistant (PDA) device, a handheld PDA device, an on-board device, an off-board device, a hybrid device, a vehicular device, a non-vehicular device, a mobile or portable device, a consumer device, a non-mobile or non-portable device, a wireless communication station, a wireless communication device, a wireless access point (AP), a wired or wireless router, a wired or wireless modem, a video device, an audio device, an audio-video (A/V) device, a wired or wireless network, a wireless area network, a wireless video area network (WVAN), a local area network (LAN), a wireless LAN (WLAN), a personal area network (PAN), a wireless PAN (WPAN), and the like.

Some embodiments may be used in conjunction with one way and/or two-way radio communication systems, cellular radio-telephone communication systems, a mobile phone, a cellular telephone, a wireless telephone, a personal communication system (PCS) device, a PDA device which incorporates a wireless communication device, a mobile or portable global positioning system (GPS) device, a device which incorporates a GPS receiver or transceiver or chip, a device which incorporates an RFID element or chip, a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) transceiver or device, a single input multiple output (SIMO) transceiver or device, a multiple input single output (MIS 0) transceiver or device, a device having one or more internal antennas and/or external antennas, digital video broadcast (DVB) devices or systems, multi-standard radio devices or systems, a wired or wireless handheld device, e.g., a smartphone, a wireless application protocol (WAP) device, or the like.

Some embodiments may be used in conjunction with one or more types of wireless communication signals and/or systems following one or more wireless communication protocols, for example, radio frequency (RF), infrared (IR), frequency-division multiplexing (FDM), orthogonal FDM (OFDM), time-division multiplexing (TDM), time-division multiple access (TDMA), extended TDMA (E-TDMA), general packet radio service (GPRS), extended GPRS, code-division multiple access (CDMA), wideband CDMA (WCDMA), CDMA 2000, single-carrier CDMA, multi-carrier CDMA, multi-carrier modulation (MDM), discrete multi-tone (DMT), Bluetooth®, global positioning system (GPS), Wi-Fi, Wi-Max, ZigBee, ultra-wideband (UWB), global system for mobile communications (GSM), 2G, 2.5G, 3G, 3.5G, 4G, fifth generation (5G) mobile networks, 3GPP, long term evolution (LTE), LTE advanced, enhanced data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), or the like. Other embodiments may be used in various other devices, systems, and/or networks.

The following examples pertain to further embodiments.

Example 1 may include a device comprising processing circuitry coupled to storage, the processing circuitry configured to: perform an association with a station multi-link device (STA MLD), wherein the STA MLD comprises one or more logical entities defining separate station devices; assign a first association identification (AID) to the STA MLD; and establish one or more links with the STA MLD; cause to send an indication of an assignment of a second AID to the STA MLD; and communicate with the STA MLD using the second AID.

Example 2 may include the device of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the second AID replaces the first AID.

Example 3 may include the device of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the second AID takes effect during a target update time.

Example 4 may include the device of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the indication may be included in a beacon frame that may be sent at a beacon interval.

Example 5 may include the device of example 3 and/or some other example herein, wherein the assignment of the second AID may be established without first disassociating or a re-associating with the STA MLD.

Example 6 may include the device of example 1 and/or some other example herein, wherein the indication may be included in an AID update frame.

Example 7 may include the device of example 6 and/or some other example herein, wherein the AID update frame comprises an AID field.

Example 8 may include the device of example 1 and/or some other example herein, further comprising a transceiver configured to transmit and receive wireless signals.

Example 9 may include the device of example 8 and/or some other example herein, further comprising an antenna coupled to the transceiver.

Example 10 may include a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions which when executed by one or more processors result in performing operations comprising: performing an association with a station multi-link device (STA MLD), wherein the STA MLD comprises one or more logical entities defining separate station devices; assigning a first association identification (AID) to the STA MLD; and establishing one or more links with the STA MLD; causing to send an indication of an assignment of a second AID to the STA MLD; and communicating with the STA MLD using the second AID.

Example 11 may include the non-transitory computer-readable medium of example 10 and/or some other example herein, wherein the second AID replaces the first AID.

Example 12 may include the non-transitory computer-readable medium of example 10 and/or some other example herein, wherein the second AID takes effect during a target update time.

Example 13 may include the non-transitory computer-readable medium of example 10 and/or some other example herein, wherein the indication may be included in a beacon frame that may be sent at a beacon interval.

Example 14 may include the non-transitory computer-readable medium of example 12 and/or some other example herein, wherein the assignment of the second AID may be established without first disassociating or a re-associating with the STA MLD.

Example 15 may include the non-transitory computer-readable medium of example 10 and/or some other example herein, wherein the indication may be included in an AID update frame.

Example 16 may include the non-transitory computer-readable medium of example 15 and/or some other example herein, wherein the AID update frame comprises an AID field.

Example 17 may include a method comprising: performing, by one or more processors, an association with a station multi-link device (STA MLD), wherein the STA MLD comprises one or more logical entities defining separate station devices; assigning a first association identification (AID) to the STA MLD; and establishing one or more links with the STA MLD; causing to send an indication of an assignment of a second AID to the STA MLD; and communicating with the STA MLD using the second AID.

Example 18 may include the method of example 17 and/or some other example herein, wherein the second AID replaces the first AID.

Example 19 may include the method of example 17 and/or some other example herein, wherein the second AID takes effect during a target update time.

Example 20 may include the method of example 17 and/or some other example herein, wherein the indication may be included in a beacon frame that may be sent at a beacon interval.

Example 21 may include the method of example 19 and/or some other example herein, wherein the assignment of the second AID may be established without first disassociating or a re-associating with the STA MLD.

Example 22 may include the method of example 17 and/or some other example herein, wherein the indication may be included in an AID update frame.

Example 23 may include the method of example 22 and/or some other example herein, wherein the AID update frame comprises an AID field.

Example 24 may include an apparatus comprising means for: performing an association with a station multi-link device (STA MLD), wherein the STA MLD comprises one or more logical entities defining separate station devices; assigning a first association identification (AID) to the STA MLD; and establishing one or more links with the STA MLD; causing to send an indication of an assignment of a second AID to the STA MLD; and communicating with the STA MLD using the second AID.

Example 25 may include the apparatus of example 24 and/or some other example herein, wherein the second AID replaces the first AID.

Example 26 may include the apparatus of example 24 and/or some other example herein, wherein the second AID takes effect during a target update time.

Example 27 may include the apparatus of example 24 and/or some other example herein, wherein the indication may be included in a beacon frame that may be sent at a beacon interval.

Example 28 may include the apparatus of example 26 and/or some other example herein, wherein the assignment of the second AID may be established without first disassociating or a re-associating with the STA MLD.

Example 29 may include the apparatus of example 24 and/or some other example herein, wherein the indication may be included in an AID update frame.

Example 30 may include the apparatus of example 29 and/or some other example herein, wherein the AID update frame comprises an AID field.

Example 31 may include one or more non-transitory computer-readable media comprising instructions to cause an electronic device, upon execution of the instructions by one or more processors of the electronic device, to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1-30, or any other method or process described herein.

Example 32 may include an apparatus comprising logic, modules, and/or circuitry to perform one or more elements of a method described in or related to any of examples 1-30, or any other method or process described herein.

Example 33 may include a method, technique, or process as described in or related to any of examples 1-30, or portions or parts thereof.

Example 34 may include an apparatus comprising: one or more processors and one or more computer readable media comprising instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method, techniques, or process as described in or related to any of examples 1-30, or portions thereof.

Example 35 may include a method of communicating in a wireless network as shown and described herein.

Example 36 may include a system for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Example 37 may include a device for providing wireless communication as shown and described herein.

Embodiments according to the disclosure are in particular disclosed in the attached claims directed to a method, a storage medium, a device and a computer program product, wherein any feature mentioned in one claim category, e.g., method, can be claimed in another claim category, e.g., system, as well. The dependencies or references back in the attached claims are chosen for formal reasons only. However, any subject matter resulting from a deliberate reference back to any previous claims (in particular multiple dependencies) can be claimed as well, so that any combination of claims and the features thereof are disclosed and can be claimed regardless of the dependencies chosen in the attached claims. The subject-matter which can be claimed comprises not only the combinations of features as set out in the attached claims but also any other combination of features in the claims, wherein each feature mentioned in the claims can be combined with any other feature or combination of other features in the claims. Furthermore, any of the embodiments and features described or depicted herein can be claimed in a separate claim and/or in any combination with any embodiment or feature described or depicted herein or with any of the features of the attached claims.

The foregoing description of one or more implementations provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the scope of embodiments to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of various embodiments.

Certain aspects of the disclosure are described above with reference to block and flow diagrams of systems, methods, apparatuses, and/or computer program products according to various implementations. It will be understood that one or more blocks of the block diagrams and flow diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and the flow diagrams, respectively, may be implemented by computer-executable program instructions. Likewise, some blocks of the block diagrams and flow diagrams may not necessarily need to be performed in the order presented, or may not necessarily need to be performed at all, according to some implementations.

These computer-executable program instructions may be loaded onto a special-purpose computer or other particular machine, a processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus to produce a particular machine, such that the instructions that execute on the computer, processor, or other programmable data processing apparatus create means for implementing one or more functions specified in the flow diagram block or blocks. These computer program instructions may also be stored in a computer-readable storage media or memory that may direct a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to function in a particular manner, such that the instructions stored in the computer-readable storage media produce an article of manufacture including instruction means that implement one or more functions specified in the flow diagram block or blocks. As an example, certain implementations may provide for a computer program product, comprising a computer-readable storage medium having a computer-readable program code or program instructions implemented therein, said computer-readable program code adapted to be executed to implement one or more functions specified in the flow diagram block or blocks. The computer program instructions may also be loaded onto a computer or other programmable data processing apparatus to cause a series of operational elements or steps to be performed on the computer or other programmable apparatus to produce a computer-implemented process such that the instructions that execute on the computer or other programmable apparatus provide elements or steps for implementing the functions specified in the flow diagram block or blocks.

Accordingly, blocks of the block diagrams and flow diagrams support combinations of means for performing the specified functions, combinations of elements or steps for performing the specified functions and program instruction means for performing the specified functions. It will also be understood that each block of the block diagrams and flow diagrams, and combinations of blocks in the block diagrams and flow diagrams, may be implemented by special-purpose, hardware-based computer systems that perform the specified functions, elements or steps, or combinations of special-purpose hardware and computer instructions.

Conditional language, such as, among others, “can,” “could,” “might,” or “may,” unless specifically stated otherwise, or otherwise understood within the context as used, is generally intended to convey that certain implementations could include, while other implementations do not include, certain features, elements, and/or operations. Thus, such conditional language is not generally intended to imply that features, elements, and/or operations are in any way required for one or more implementations or that one or more implementations necessarily include logic for deciding, with or without user input or prompting, whether these features, elements, and/or operations are included or are to be performed in any particular implementation.

Many modifications and other implementations of the disclosure set forth herein will be apparent having the benefit of the teachings presented in the foregoing descriptions and the associated drawings. Therefore, it is to be understood that the disclosure is not to be limited to the specific implementations disclosed and that modifications and other implementations are intended to be included within the scope of the appended claims. Although specific terms are employed herein, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A device, the device comprising processing circuitry coupled to storage, the processing circuitry configured to: perform an association with a station multi-link device (STA MLD), wherein the STA MLD comprises one or more logical entities defining separate station devices; assign a first association identification (AID) to the STA MLD; and establish one or more links with the STA MLD; cause to send an indication of an assignment of a second AID to the STA MLD; and communicate with the STA MLD using the second AID.
 2. The device of claim 1, wherein the second AID replaces the first AID.
 3. The device of claim 1, wherein the second AID takes effect during a target update time.
 4. The device of claim 1, wherein the indication is included in a beacon frame that is sent at a beacon interval.
 5. The device of claim 3, wherein the assignment of the second AID is established without first disassociating or a re-associating with the STA MLD.
 6. The device of claim 1, wherein the indication is included in an AID update frame.
 7. The device of claim 6, wherein the AID update frame comprises an AID field.
 8. The device of claim 1, further comprising a transceiver configured to transmit and receive wireless signals.
 9. The device of claim 8, further comprising an antenna coupled to the transceiver.
 10. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions which when executed by one or more processors result in performing operations comprising: performing an association with a station multi-link device (STA MLD), wherein the STA MLD comprises one or more logical entities defining separate station devices; assigning a first association identification (AID) to the STA MLD; and establishing one or more links with the STA MLD; causing to send an indication of an assignment of a second AID to the STA MLD; and communicating with the STA MLD using the second AID.
 11. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the second AID replaces the first AID.
 12. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the second AID takes effect during a target update time. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the indication is included in a beacon frame that is sent at a beacon interval.
 14. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 12, wherein the assignment of the second AID is established without first disassociating or a re-associating with the STA MLD.
 15. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 10, wherein the indication is included in an AID update frame.
 16. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the AID update frame comprises an AID field.
 17. A method comprising: performing, by one or more processors, an association with a station multi-link device (STA MLD), wherein the STA MLD comprises one or more logical entities defining separate station devices; assigning a first association identification (AID) to the STA MLD; and establishing one or more links with the STA MLD; causing to send an indication of an assignment of a second AID to the STA MLD; and communicating with the STA MLD using the second AID.
 18. The method of claim 17, wherein the second AID replaces the first AID.
 19. The method of claim 17, wherein the second AID takes effect during a target update time.
 20. The method of claim 17, wherein the indication is included in a beacon frame that is sent at a beacon interval. 